Current Assault on Freedom of Speech ‘Worse Than McCarthyism,’ a Federal Judge Avers

Judge Silberman hopes for ‘a Democratic counterpart’ to Senator Margaret Chase Smith, who in her 1950 ‘Declaration of Conscience’ attacked McCarthy for his smear campaigns.

Senator Margaret Chase Smith in 1943. Via Wikimedia Commons

“Worse than McCarthyism” is how one of the most distinguished judges on the federal appeals bench describes the current chill around free speech. 

The judge, Laurence Silberman of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, is speaking of the alarm in the legal community that the next generation of lawyers will turn their backs on the very document to which they are sworn to vouchsafe — the United States Constitution. 

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